ALABAMA – President Joe Biden has canceled ex-president Donald Trump’s plans for a “National Garden of American Heroes” that would have included statues of six Alabamians.
Trump’s executive order called for the creation of a statuary park to honor historically significant Americans. The park, first announced during a 2020 Mount Rushmore speech by Trump, was set to open on July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of the proclamation of the Declaration of Independence.
Biden revoked the order establishing the park along with several other of his predecessor’s executive orders, including one that enacted stricter penalties for defacing historical monuments and another that made it easier to sue social media companies.
The 240 statues chosen for inclusion in the park were picked by the Trump-appointed Interagency Task Force for Building and Rebuilding Monuments to American Heroes.
Alabamians on the list were:
- Singer Nat King Cole, a native of Montgomery.
- Writer and activist Helen Keller of Tuscumbia.
- Monroeville’s Harper Lee, author of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
- Four-time Olympic gold medalist Jesse Owens of Oakville.
- Coretta Scott King of Marion, activist, writer and the wife of the Nobel Peace Prize winner Rev. Martin Luther King.
- Rosa Parks of Tuskegee, the activist best known for her role in the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Also included were several who figured in Alabama history, such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who pastored Montgomery’s Dexter Ave. Baptist Church, scientist George Washington Carver, Booker T. Washington, the founder of the Tuskegee Institute, and Desmond Doss, Medal of Honor recipient who died in Piedmont.
